“This is the soundtrack for the final days when you sit lonely in your room, the bleak light of the atomic winter crawling through the sallow window, watching the walls come down...” – this is the description by De Arma, hailing from Sweden.

The description is fairly accurate, the record itself is submerged in an apocalyptic shroud that has Morrissey shouting “The end is nigh!” while practicing his metal growling before the world does burn to a cinder.

Both lyrically and musically this album works miracles, even if the progressive rock lengths of more than six minutes a track makes it a bit tedious. Allain does try to make ends meet with his dreary vocal delivery that gives it an almost psycadelic approach, which can be found on tracks such as Fires of Hope and a more metal performance on Beyond These Filthy Panes, added additional screams in that juxtapose with clean vocals in harmony. Whereas on tracks such as Left to Hide, he just picks one or the other to pick per time.

Musically there’s a drone atmosphere with Pettersson covering both guitar and bass with Marklund on drums. The drone makes the personal stories and the spoken dialogue on the end of tracks such as The Tower intriguing, which furthermore heightens the sense of a personal struggle.

Overall, this album could have been something - could. There’s something magical about it but if the drone and the whole Morrissey vocals weren’t in heavy use then this album would have been phenomenal, but it’s something to consider listening to just for the lyrics.